Wednesday, February 8, 2012

"Prop. 8 ruling: why it might not go the the Supreme Court"

Justice Kennedy is seen as the key swing vote on the US Supreme Court, and “I think Judge Reinhardt absolutely wrote a narrow decision as if he were writing a letter directly to Justice Kennedy,” says Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

By pointing to Romer v. Evans, Professor Levinson says, Reinhardt “made it sound like this decision [on Prop. 8] followed undeniably from some of Kennedy’s own thinking on that case.”

She also notes how Reinhardt steered clear of any implication of a broader right to gay marriage. “We …. need not and do not consider whether same-sex couples have a fundamental right to marry,” the opinion stated.